I didn’t expect to go to Europe while in Edmonton, but that’s exactly what we got when we visited Kevin Kossowan.

We sat at a weathered wooden table under an apple tree, the air a bit hazy from the cob oven, a trellis of grapes within view, and homemade charcuterie in front of us. How could we not feel like we'd gone abroad?

Kevin is a local food innovator, with his hands in many an Edmonton pie. His fleet of projects include Story Chaser, a video production company with a focus on agriculture and food; Shovel and Fork, which provides workshops on craft food production including charcuterie, fermentation, raising backyard hens, and cob oven construction; and Lactuca, an urban ag business he runs with partner Travis Kennedy. They supply Edmonton’s best restaurants with micro-greens grown in their own backyards.

They’re dedicated to building up a successful urban ag business model, and by the looks of it, they’re doing pretty well. I'm not sure if Kevin actually sleeps, but I was too busy admiring his cob oven to ask.

We had the amazing fortune of joining Kevin for lunch. The meal included a frittata made with his hens’ eggs, local butter, Lactuca greens, edible flowers, and foraged mushrooms.

He’d scored a bunch a day or two earlier, and the caps and stems were laid out on his dining room table to dry - an exquisite graveyard of fungi.

His Lactuca micro-green ‘greenhouse’ boxes are arranged tidily around his yard; he and Travis use a simple yet incredibly effective type of box gardening with lids, meaning they can trap geothermal heat (giving them a longer growing season), and protect the greens if it rains or hails, simply by closing the lids. With these kinds of methods, a huge amount of food can be grown in very small spaces.

Shovel and Fork’s head teaching instructor, Chef Chad Moss (and his adorable blondie son, Max), also joined us for lunch.

Chad is the company’s charcuterie guru, and contributed various kinds of salumi to our lunch, as well as homemade Red Fife bread and cold-smoked salmon.

The meal was phenomenal, and we drank homemade apple cider to wash it all down.

Thanks to Kevin and Chad for this most gorgeous, lazy, sunlit summer lunch. People of Edmonton - don't bother buying a ticket to Europe! Just take a few Shovel and Fork classes and you'll be ready to setup your own piece of French or Italian countryside in the backyard.

We'll leave you with one of Kevin's videos featuring two of our very favourite peeps, Dana and Cam of Joy Road Catering:

-LA

Eating local in the Okanagan is rather effortless. I knew this before arriving, but I did not quite anticipate how much excellent regional food we would enjoy in the short time we were there. Our time spent at Deerpath Lookout B&B in Kaledon, BC succeeded in introducing us to a variety of signature Okanagan edibles.

Deerpath is a large Arizona-adobe style house built by John and Doug in the late 90’s, surrounded by the characteristic pines and dusty desert-mountains of the Okanagan.

They prepared exquisite breakfasts every morning, featuring the bounty of the local area. At 600 pounds, even the table we dined at contributed to the grand feeling of brunching at Deerpath, made of immaculately restored wood from on old submerged barge.

During our stay, we enjoyed poached apricots, eggs from their neighbours, mulberries, rainier and lapin cherries, roasted tomato salsa, bread from Cam and Dana at Joy Road, and fresh, rich and flavourful Upper Bench cheeses. The Upper Bench Winery is run by a husband and wife team, and they produce both wine as well as artisanal cheeses. Shana Miller, the cheese maker, handcrafts eight different cow’s milk cheeses including Okanagan Sun, Grey Baby, and Italian Gold.

Both John and Doug are so naturally hospitable, it’s easy to see why they do the work they do. Before we left, John sent us on the road with two bags of his incredible homemade granola. This stuff kept us extremely well-fed during the many days of camping that followed.

Deer Path Lookout B&B Granola

4 C     raw oats
3/4C    sweetened, shredded coconut
3/4C    slivered almonds

toss them together in a large bowl. Then, whisk together the following and blend completely

3/4C    vegetable oil
3/4C    maple syrup
1T    vanilla
2T    cinnamon
2T    dried ginger

toss the oat mixture to cover the dry mix completely

bake on a large baking sheet in a 375F convection oven, turning when necessary to ensure an even roast and colour – about 15 minutes – remove and cool in large bowl

then add a variety of seeds, dried fruits and nuts - add flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, dried apricots, a variety of raisins and sometimes chocolate chips – the choice is yours – and enjoy!

Thank you John and Doug!

-DV

Chasing Stories, Knowledge, and Greens

Deerpath Lookout and Okanagan Bounty